Download What is a portal?

Portals for Bioinformatics
Nick Sharman
myGrid project manager
30 June 2004
www.mygrid.org.uk
Outline
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What is a portal?
Portal frameworks
Portal toolkits
Standards
myGrid portal development
Conclusions
What is a portal?
Examples
• www.netscape.com
• www.yahoo.com
• portal.acm.org
What is a portal?
Characteristics
• Aggregation
– resources from different providers
• Common context
– navigation
– Branding
• Personalization
– resources tailored to users
• Single sign-on
– common access to all resources
Outline
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What is a portal?
Portal frameworks
Portal toolkits
Standards
myGrid portal development
Conclusions
Portal frameworks
Examples
• Apache Jetspeed – Java
– resources are portlets
• uPortal – Java
– resources are channels
• CMFPortlets – Zope-based
– resources are portlets
Portal frameworks
Properties
• Separate generic from
specific
• Generic capabilities
– Aggregation
– Page management
– Authentication &
authorization
– Presentation
– Implementation
Portlet Container
Interface
Interface
Interface
Portlet
Portlet
Portlet
• Specific capabilities
– User-defined
– Component interface
Outline
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What is a portal?
Portal frameworks
Portal toolkits
Standards
myGrid portal development
Conclusions
Portal toolkits
Properties
• Specialized to application areas
– education
– research
– commerce
–…
Portlet Container
Interface
Interface
Interface
Portlet
Portlet
Portlet
• Provide:
– Portal framework
– Customizable portlets
– Utilities
Portal toolkits
Examples
• CHEF (chefproject.org)
– collaborating groups in education & research
– framework: Jetspeed 1
• OGCE (www.collab-ogce.org)
– Grid service provision
– framework: CHEF
• CourseWork (coursework.stanford.edu/)
– education
– framework: Oracle/own
Outline
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What is a portal?
Portal frameworks
Portal toolkits
Standards
myGrid portal development
Conclusions
Standards
The alternatives
• JSR-168: Java Portlet Specification
– Java Community Process
– Built on Servlet specification
• WSRP: Web Service for Remote Portals
– OASIS
– Portlets are Web Services
– Standard port type & messages
Standards
The architectures
Portlet Container
Portal
SOAP
Interface
SOAP
SOAP
Interface
Interface
WSRP
WSRP
WSRP
Standards
Co-existence
• WSRP
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Local control
Low call overhead
Fixed configuration
Limited load sharing
Interface
Interface
WSRP
Proxy
Custom
Proxy
SOAP
• Portlet specification
Interface
SOAP
 Implementation
independence
 Load sharing
 Dynamic discovery
 Network hop
 Most web services have
programmatic interfaces
Portlet Container
WSRP
Custom
Standards
Implementation
• JSR-168
– Frameworks
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Apache Pluto (reference implementation)
Apache Jetspeed 2
uPortal
OracleAS Portal
– Toolkits
• SAKAI: uPortal + CHEF (www.sakaiproject.org)
• WSRP
– Frameworks
• OracleAS Portal
Outline
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What is a portal?
Portal frameworks
Portal toolkits
Standards
myGrid portal development
Conclusions
myGrid
portal development
Context and approach
• Thesis
– Biologists familiar with web sites
– myGrid is middleware
• Antithesis
– Middleware is for programs, not people
– General-purpose client apps are complex
• Synthesis
– Application-specific portals
– myGrid portal toolkit
myGrid
portal development
Portal toolkit for bioinformaticians
• Target application
– Williams-Bueren Syndrome
– Fixed set of workflows
• Extra myGrid portlets
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Configurable
Workflow enactment
Workflow scheduling
Completion notification
Results browsing
• Based on CHEF & Jetspeed-1
– Portlets for team collaboration:
Outline
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What is a portal?
Portal frameworks
Portal toolkits
Standards
myGrid portal development
Conclusions
Conclusions
• Portals are an attractive way of presenting
e-science resources to a community
• Portal frameworks & toolkits make portal
construction practical
• Portal standards allow unanticipated
integrations